Dead Girls Don't Kiss
by Connecticut Junkie
Summary: She came back darker, harder, all edges and angles where it used to be softness and shiny, pink bubbles of gum. She came back as two people- the girl who’d tagged after him in her formative years, and the woman who kept herself distant. (W/J)


Author: Connecticut Junkie

Disclaimer: Hey, I'd like to work for Marvel. But I don't, which means they don't endorse this or give me the right to play with their characters. What a cruel world.

Rating: R for vague naughtiness. This is Wolverine/Jubilee, and I'm warning you ahead of time so if you are firmly, inflexibly opposed to that, get out now. But if you're open to new things, I invite you in.

This is a short, one-time-only ficlet written for Mala, to encourage her to finish her own story. If you haven't read it, it's called "Like Open Doors" and it's better.

Note: Now I'm gonna justify this W/J fic to those of you who are a little uncertain. Jubilee is 27 here. That's way old. And now comes the fun, comic time vs. our time justification. Technically, since they barely aged her in the many years she was in the X-Men, in 'real time' she wasn't with them for all that long. Then after Gen X ended, she was like what? Sixteen or so, I'd say. Then she disappeared for a while, but in Uncanny 425 she's at the bachelorette party and looks at least 18. The point I'm making: Wolverine has been out of her life more than in it, and any 'father figure' notions have been long gone. 

Ah, the beauty of comicverse.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She'd died on him not once but twice. The first time when she'd been nineteen, crucified, and left on the doorstep of the mansion like a sick greeting card. But thanks to Warren, she'd come back. Not the same as before, although he couldn't have been sure since he hadn't even seen her in years. She came back darker, harder, all edges and angles where it used to be softness and shiny, pink bubbles of gum. She came back as two people- the girl who'd tagged after him in her formative years, and the woman who kept herself distant.  
  
Not that she'd singled him out- she'd retreated from everyone equally. But in the past, when she'd go into her own world, he'd always been granted access. He had wondered if maybe Angelo had been more than a friend, and his inner beast snarled at the thought. Which scared the man. Jubilee was not his mate. But the beast would not be silenced, and continued to growl, quiet but incessant. A constant pull that he had to consciously fight. It made him take even more time off from the team than he really wanted, because he could not trust himself completely. Because he knew she did.  
  
But some history could not be forgotten. And though Chuck had probably picked up on some of the vibes, he'd still assigned Logan and Jubilee to an undercover mission in China.  
  
Where she died for the second time.  
  
It was only for a moment. But Logan could hear the skip of her heartbeat, the flutter as it tried to soldier on, then the silence when it failed. The whisper of her last breath escaping her lungs was inaudible to everyone else, but to him it was a fierce roar of a winter wind.   
  
He'd bruised a rib doing CPR. Pressed his lips against hers for the first time as he blew air into her lungs. Told her that if she died on him he was coming after her just so he could kick her ass.  
  
She coughed up blood with her first breath, and Logan knew that immediate medical attention was necessary. He also knew that if someone wanted her dead, they would try again until the task was done. So he carried her through the back alleys, away from the hotel they'd stayed at, until he reached a healer.   
  
The old man had been awakened by a growling monster holding a wounded woman, but any fear he'd had dissipated as Logan tossed the two hundred and forty four American dollars he'd had in his pocket on the man's bed.   
  
"Fix her," he ordered in Mandarin.   
  
The old man nodded, scrabbling from his bed so Logan could lay Jubilee down. He found a seat in the corner for himself, propped his legs on a desk, and sat unmoving, unblinking, and unthinking until the old man had finished.  
  
"Your woman will heal," the old man said, as the earliest of the dawn's rays painted the inside of the room a pale pink.   
  
Logan thanked him, and realized it was the first time someone had assumed he was her lover.  
  
In a hotel room on the other side of Beijing, Jubilee spent two days slipping in and out of consciousness. On the third day, she sat up, her eyes taking in the different accommodations with mild curiosity.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"You died," he told her.  
  
She shrugged. "Yeah. I do that a lot."  
  
Her nonchalance irritated as much as it endeared herself to him. "Damn it, Jubilation. Stop doing it." He crossed the room and cupped her face with a rough hand. "Stop leaving me."  
  
She smirked, long black hair falling over one eye, making her look more threatening. "Do unto others as they have done to you."   
  
He couldn't protest because she was right. So he just stood up and went for the door. "I'll be right back, Darlin'. Just gonna get ya something to eat."  
  
Her hands passed over the blood-stained shirt, then ran through her unkempt hair. She frowned. "Uck. I reek worse than you and Gumbo after a Danger Room session."  
  
"I'll be back," he reassured her, but she'd already disappeared into the bathroom.  
  
Minutes later he returned, a container of plain white rice in his hands. He could hear her still in the bathroom, and he put the bowl on the little table for her.   
  
She must have heard him, because she stepped out, her hair wet from the shower and dripping onto the white undershirt she was wearing. His shirt, the one that she'd bled all over as he carried her through the Beijing alleys. It had taken days of washing to get all the blood stains out.   
  
"There was blood in the shower water," she said, and it immediately distracted him from noticing how the shirt barely covered her.  
  
"The knife was thrown from across the bar," he explained. "You must have sensed it, because you tried to turn away. It hit you in the back." He managed a grin. "That leather corset thing at least gave you some protection."  
  
Jubilee snorted. "And you told me not to wear it. Somethin' bout being indecent..."  
  
If she hadn't have moved, it would have been a direct hit to her heart. He didn't mention that. "It was." He motioned her closer to him. "C'mere. I'll put a bandage on it."  
  
She kneeled on the bed, the shirt now completely failing to cover her below. Logan tried not to look at the tiny bikini underwear that showed.   
  
"Where're your pants?" he gruffly asked as he lifted the back of the shirt.  
  
"Soaking," she answered, and even though her back was to him he knew she was smirking. "Like you've never seen me in a bikini before."  
  
"You were thirteen," he pointed out, remembering their adventures in the Savage Land.  
  
"Nice one, Humbert."  
  
Logan pressed the alcohol-soaked gauze a little harder than necessary against her stitched up wound. It wasn't large, but it had been deep. She hissed, hunching her shoulders.  
  
"Sorry," he apologized, instantly regretful.  
  
"S'okay."  
  
He watched the taut muscles in her narrow back bunch as he finished putting the new gauze bandage over her wound. The heat from her skin burned the tips of his fingers. Infection had been a possibility, but her fever was low-grade, coming and going. One less thing to worry about.  
  
"Lift your shirt," he ordered, as he unrolled more gauze. He didn't have any tape to keep the bandage in place, so he wrapped a long strip around her ribcage. He took extra care as he crossed the strip over her front, not wanting to accidentally brush the undersides of her breasts. He wrapped it around her twice, tore the gauze from the roll and knotted the two ends together. It wasn't pretty, but it would hold together, at least until the next time her wound needed dressing.  
  
"Done?" she asked, and waited for an answer that never came. "Wolvie?"  
  
"Yeah?" was his initial reaction before he realized she'd asked him a question. The way she was holding the shirt up he could see the side of her breast.   
  
"You finished?"   
  
"Yeah," he grunted, tearing his eyes away. "Put yer shirt down."  
  
She obliged, and twisted- carefully- to face him. "Is it bad?"  
  
"Worse than you think."  
  
The way his voice cracked let her know how close it had been, and she leaned into him. "I'm okay."  
  
"You almost weren't." His words were muffled as he pressed his lips to her forehead, the top of her shiny black hair.   
  
"Dude, let it go. Shit happens and you're not perfect. You can't protect me all the time." She pulled away from him. "I don't expect you to. I gave that up years ago."  
  
That was the most she'd ever admit about her time with Bastion, but even subtle references pierced him with regret and anger, both at himself and that bastard. 

She saw the shadow pass over his face. With Logan, everyone, at some point, left him. But for those people he loved, they seemed to die on him even faster. She wanted to prove to him that she was fine. That she wasn't going anywhere. She was going to do the one thing she'd wanted to do before she died, and had almost missed her chance of doing.  
  
Jubilee put her hand on his stubble and kissed him before he could see it coming. First, he didn't move, then kissed her back before suddenly trying to push her away. He wasn't fighting her, though. He was fighting himself.   
  
"See?" she said, before the silence between them could grow awkward. "Dead girls don't kiss."   
  
There was a war going on behind his eyes, between rational man and primal beast. For a moment, she was mad at herself for inciting the confrontation. One of Logan's few fears was losing control again. Of going completely feral. So she backed away, putting space between them.  
  
His hands pulled through his hair, because he couldn't quite trust them near her. The beast inside had been awakened, and would not be silenced. All he could hope for was containment. Restraint.  
  
Which was almost funny. Because restraint was not a trait he was known for.   
  
It wasn't love. It was beyond that. Love was an emotion for the civilized, the domesticated. At this moment, he was neither. He was missing a piece of himself, and that piece was lying in front of him. Ready for the taking. The reclaiming.  
  
Jubilation was not weak. In the eight years since her return to the mansion, she'd surpassed all expectations Scott and Chuck had for her. They'd thought her pyrotechnics, her fireworks, were nothing more than that. Beta class at best. But she'd surprised them all- except for him, of course. In the most extreme case, those tiny hands could unleash an energy blast nearly equivalent to an atomic bomb.  
  
Hank had explained it to him once. Plasma was the highest state of energy that molecules could be in. Power was inherent- it was just a matter of understanding, of harnessing. And Jubilee had done both.  
  
So Jubilee, even in her weakened state, could blast him across the room. Or, if she really disagreed, reduce him to no more than a pile of organic ash. He was prepared for either, and encountered none.   
  
It was not about sensuality, but carnality. She lunged at him, at the same moment he lunged for her. Teeth gnashing, mouths dueling, blood running from a bite she inflicted on his lower lip before it healed shut.   
  
His claws popped out, his hand sliding under the shirt and slicing all the way up. He nicked her inner thigh, below her belly button, along her collarbone. Leaving shallow, nearly painless cuts that nonetheless would leave his mark on her for the rest of her life. His large, rough palms cradled her face, the claws slowly retracting, passing just millimeters from her skin. She never flinched, instead arching into his touch, grabbing him by the collar and hauling him down into the bed with her, removing his shirt almost as fast as he'd done to hers, and leaving it in just as poor a condition.  
  
"Want you," she whispered as his head dipped to her breast, his teeth marks instantly visible against the pale skin.   
  
"Need you," he replied, one-upping her as his head went lower, inhaling the scent that had secretly maddened him for so long now. His tongue flicked out to taste her, to know what home was for the first time in years. She moaned loudly beneath him, mewling her pleasure as he savored every nuance. But like him, she was impatient. And unlike him, she had excellent gymnastic skills.   
  
In a move he couldn't quite keep track of, she slid out from under him, flipping around until she straddled his lower hips, rocking back and forth over the jeans she hadn't managed to completely undo.   
  
"Forgive me, darlin'," he ground out as she yanked his jeans off him completely. But it sounded hollow. How could he ask for forgiveness when he knew he didn't deserve it?  
  
But she didn't give it to him, anyhow. Instead she snorted as she threw his jeans over her shoulder, halfway across the room.   
  
"For what? For doing what we've both wanted for years?" Her hands wound into his hair, holding his head down, forcing him to look directly into her face. "Don't pull your noble routine on me. I know you try so hard to stick with it, to be the one who suffers for those you care about."  
  
She kissed him lightly, teasingly, her tongue tracing over the points of his canines. There was a gleam in her dark blue eyes as she pulled back. "I love you for that."   
  
Her hands left his head, roaming over the taught muscles of his broad shoulders, before stopping on his chest to feel the pounding heart beneath. "But your nobility is only skin deep. When you run..." her nails drew shallow lines over his stomach, leaving a wake of flaring red skin that disappeared in seconds, "that's the real you."   
  
Something inside him snapped as her fingers curled around him, squeezing and sliding until a strangled moan escaped his lips. He couldn't turn back, couldn't deny any longer that she was not just the cause of his frequent departures but the sole reason for his return.   
  
Tonight, he wasn't going anywhere.  
  
"You're the man who runs when things get hard," she whispered, before curling the edges of her lips into a smile and squeezing him a little harder. "No pun intended," she quickly added. Her smile faded and she leaned forward, her tongue grazing over the stubble on his neck, her teeth nipping his chin. When she spoke, her lips brushed over his. "And I hate you for that. So fuck you and your nobility."  
  
How could she fit both derision and love into her voice? How could she think so clearly when all he could see was lust and need through a haze of guilt?  
  
Then she slid onto him. And he was inside her, man and beast, Logan and the Wolverine. Piercing through the haze with each thrust into her, faster and harder and deeper until all the guilt was eradicated and rushing to fill the void it left was the sensation that this was _right_. This was how it was meant to be.   
  
Her climax hit first, causing her to arch her back so far her wet hair brushed his thighs. But she didn't stop, just snapped up, digging one hand into the muscles of his shoulder and nailing him with an unblinking gaze as she rode him even harder.   
  
"Fuck me," she whispered, and in his ears it was almost a shout. He obliged, hands slipping around her hips and guiding her.   
  
His own climax hit just as hard, and with a guttural growl that was half name, half curse, and wholly thankful he thrust into her for the last time, claws popping free once again, leaving marks on her back.   
  
She may have come a second time, because she was panting and lying on his chest when his senses slowly came back to him. The scent of blood and sex mingled in the air, the shallow slashes in her back dripping tiny rivulets that slid down her skin to join the other fluids where their bodies were still connected.   
  
As he held her, the man inside slowly regaining control over the beast, he realized that truly, for the first time, there was no girl inside her. Just the woman who lay next to him. And both of him loved the one of her.  
  
  
-end-

Thanks for reading (and please, no 'eww, Wolverine/Jubilee is gross'. I totally warned you in advance.)


End file.
